No Easy Way Seen to Cut Creek’s Salt

Spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money to cut salt levels in troubled Calleguas Creek will not solve water pollution woes facing local farmers, a new analysis shows.

The report, prepared for a coalition of Ventura County cities and water districts, is in response to a proposal by regional water quality regulators that opponents say will double the average east county water bill.

“We’re talking about cost with no benefit here,” said Robert Westdyke, Camarillo’s public works director. “It doesn’t make sense to spend money and get nothing out of it.”

Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board officials have proposed a stricter standard for chloride in certain areas of the Calleguas Creek watershed, which stretches across the east county from Simi Valley to Mugu Lagoon.

The chloride is actually a medley of salty pollutants that gives drinking water a chalky taste and attacks the roots of sensitive crops. Chloride damage results in lower yields, especially in strawberry fields and avocado groves.

A water board meeting on the issue that had been scheduled for this Thursday has been postponed for a few months. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intends to adopt the new standard by March 22--a deadline imposed by a 1999 lawsuit settlement with environmental groups.

It is still unclear what the ramifications of such an action would be, although cities and water districts indicate that another lawsuit against the EPA is possible.

Regulators say it is their job to make sure that the creek, some of which trickles into ground-water basins and is then pumped for irrigation, is not polluted to the point that it becomes unusable for downstream farmers.

“Chloride concentrations have increased steadily since the 1970s, and there’s no reason to believe that trend won’t continue unless we do something,” said Melinda Becker, who handles the program for the water board.

Because waste-water plants from Simi Valley to Camarillo are the source of most of the water in Calleguas Creek, the burden is being placed on them to cut the concentrations of chloride.

Current regulations allow Calleguas to contain up to 190 parts per million of chloride. But that interim limit, in place since the early 1990s, will expire next month.

Last year, the regional board proposed cutting the level for the entire basin to 110 ppm--considered to be the optimal level for the growing of avocados.

Officials have since revised the plan so that only the uppermost stretches of the creek would have to comply with the strict standard, while the rest of the watershed could stay at 150 ppm.

But even that has not satisfied anyone.

“It’s a question of whether the proposal is totally outrageous or just mostly outrageous,” said Don Nelson, public works director in Thousand Oaks.

The only way to comply with any standard lower than 190 ppm, officials say, is through a process called reverse osmosis, which forces out the salty particles through a system of synthetic membranes.

Cities would have to spend up to $70 million each to build the treatment facilities, translating into monthly rate hikes ranging from $20 to $40 per household.

To fight the proposal, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Simi Valley, the Camrosa Water District and the Ventura County Water District in Moorpark have joined forces. Together, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers and scientific experts.

Hydrologist Timothy J. Durbin, former chief of the water resources division for the U.S. Geological Survey, prepared the latest report .

Using computer-simulation models of the watershed over a 40-year period, Durbin determined that imposing the 110-ppm standard would not significantly cut chloride levels in the area’s ground water.

The reason, he concluded, is that agriculture irrigation causes most of the salt buildup underground. As salty water is applied to crops, the water evaporates but the salt remains in the soil, eventually trickling back into the ground water, the report said.

Dave Smith, a team leader at the EPA, said officials will “take a hard look” at the study before making a decision. But he also said the EPA would not miss the court-ordered deadline and did not know whether altering the plan now was possible under public-notice laws.

Becker, of the regional board, stressed that the new standard is only intended to protect surface water and some of the shallow ground-water basins alongside the creek.

That approach, however, is the crux of the frustration for cities and water districts, who say the regional board is operating in a vacuum. They are urging a more holistic solution, as are the farmers the action is meant to benefit.

Ann DeMartini, general manager of two Somis water companies , disputes that farmers are the source of the increased chlorides.

But she does agree that the proposed water-board action will not sufficiently reduce the irrigation water’s salt content--a need that is becoming more critical for many growers.